The Games children Play
by Dreamingsinger
Summary: Maya finds herself spending the afternoon with seven year old Drizzt. She will come to learn a few things about the little soncondboy. Title pending.


**Disclainer: The characters in this fanfic are not mine. I am just Barrowing them form RA Salavatore, for no profit at all.**

**Author's note's: I love to read fanfics about young Drizzt. I finally decided to actually try to write one as well. This one features Drizzt's sister Maya. I have never seen any stories in which she is featured, and so I desiced to try it for something different. Yes I KNOW Maya is a bit OOC in this story. I wanted to write her like that. I am using my right to creative licence. Please read and review. I do love reviews. they really make the life of a fanfiction writer worthwhile **

The games children play

The water that he had used to clean the floor was still pooled in little puddles in many small patches on the slick granite and marble. As he walked toward the balcony, intending to pour the bucket of dirty water over the side, he slipped on one of these little puddles. The bucket flew form the boy's hands as they went forward to break his fall. Water splashed onto the far wall of the large room and spilled all over the floor. Seven year old Drizzt, second boy of house Do'urden threw his hands up into the air in a gesture of fustration as soon as he had scambled to her feet and survayed the mess. The room looked just as bad now as it had when he had started cleaning. Just as messy, and much wetter, he thought in disapointment. He was sure that it would take the rest of the afternoon to finish the room now. He went to get some cleaning rags form a closet in the hallway, and determined that he would just have to make the best of things. He went went back, turned his spilled bucket upright, and set about cleaning up the spilled water.

Drizzt was just about finished with the soaked floor a good while later. He looked across the room form where he stood near the balcony and saw another large pool of water near the door. He shrugged childish mischief, detirmined not to let himself get downhearted by the huge task he had not yet completed. The young second boy picked up the wet rag, stuffed it in his pocket, and took a short run on the still slightly wet floor. He slipped onto his knees and slid right across the room, using his foot to stop himself before crashing into the opposite wall. He laughed to himself at his little game and cleaned up the water next to him. He got up, took another run, and slid across the room again, this time staying on his feet. He slid across the room several times, soon forgetting the purpse behind traveling across it in the first place. He slid once more from one side of the room to another, and dropped to his knees. The rag, which he still carried, slipped from his hand and he leaned forward to gather momentum. he put out a hand to stop himself from hitting a wall, and found himself stopped dead by a sudden impact. Drizzt found himself staring at a pair of female boots and the bottom of a black cloak, which drapped over the floor behind the two feet.

_Eyes on the floor,_ he reminded himself as he got to his feet slowly. He was filled with dread, quite certain that he was really in trouble this time. He stared at the booted feet, trying to determine who they belonged to. The boots were the type that seemed to be favored by the Do'urden women. They all owned at least one pair of them, and while they did have many other pairs of boots, they all seemed to wear those ones most of the time. He was sure that it was not his sister Vierna that stood before him. She had cared for him his whole short life. He was far too used to looking at her feet. He knew that this pair was not hers. He thought with dread that the feet could be his oldest sister Briza's, but soon realized that her feet were considerably bigger than that. Drizzt might normaly have inwardly laughed at the thought of his oldest sister having big feet, but now was not a time that he could have found the humor in it. He knew that the feet he was obedeantly staring down at could only belong to one other person. Drizzt's shoulders stiffened as he realized that he had most likely, without a doubt, banged right into his mother, the mattron of house Do'urden. He was sure now, more than before, that he was really going to get it.

"Drizzt," said the voice of the person wearing those black boots. "You certainly are bigger. It does seem though, that the bigger you get, the bigger your trouble gets." The voice was filled with laughter.

Drizzt continued to look at the newly washed and still very wet floor. He was puzzled though by the voice. That certainly was not his mother. He dared to look up and see who see was. After all, he asked himself, what was the worst that could happen?

"Maya." he cried excitedly as his eyes met those of his other sister, the youngest of them, and still in her final years at the accademy for preistesses. She had lived at the school his whole life, and he saw her only when she came home now and then, usually to join in a ritual or attend to important family business. The little second boy knew almost nothing about his youngest sister, but he knew that in his world, that might somehow be a good thing. Maya took one of the dryer rags from the pile by the door, and to Drizzt's amazement, got down on her knees and began to soak up some of the water that remained on the floor.

"You are very lucky little brother," she told him as she wrung the rag out over the bucket, "that it was me who caught you messing around in here. If it had been either Vierna or Briza, or Lolth forbid the matron mother herself who caught you behaving that way, it would end in a whipping you would remember for all your life. Of that I can assure you."

"You... you don't plan to tell them?' Drizzt asked, kneeling next to his sister as she wrung the rag again. Maya tossed him another of the cleaning rags and gestured toward the puddle of water near his knees. He did not need to be told twice. He took the gentle hint and began to clean, sure that his secret was safe with her.

"What were you doing in here anyway?" Maya asked, looking up after the last of the clean up was done.

"I... I was almost done with the floor, and then I slipped," Drizzt answered truthfully. "I spilled all the water in the pale. I was cleaning it up... but I guess it turned into a game instead. I'm sorry. I guess I just get ditracted a lot of the time."

"Well little brother," Maya said, putting a hand on young Drizzt's shoulder. "I suppose there is more to life then just cleaning the house all the time. I remember being a child. Girls can have it tough to you know." She leaned over to him and said quietly, "it seems so much worse when Briza is your sister, and the one you are forced to answer to. That woman is insane I tell you." Drizzt laughed at his sister's blatant insult of their sibling.

"You females still have it easy," he said. "Females control this place. You can do whatever you want."

"Not so, little brother."Maya answered matter of factly. "Us females are very much at the mercy of many other higher ranked females, who then answer to ones higher than them."

"Did you ever have to clean this floor?" Drizzt asked bluntly.

"This one and every other in the house," Maya replied, amused by her brother's childish innocence. "I outgrew all this senseless slavework soon enough, and you will to," she promised honestly. "It's a long life here, that much is sure... as long as you don't do something stupid, like get yourself killed."

Killed?" Drizzt asked in puzzlement. "Who would ever wish to kill me?" Maya did not give an answer the question. Better, she thought, not to hurt the boy's innocence just yet. There would be plenty of time for others to do that, by the time he went off to the accademy.

"Maya?" said drizzt after a few silent moments of kneeling on the damp floor.

"Hmmm?"

"Will you play with me?"

"Play with you?" Maya echoed in disbelief. "Lolth's preistesses don't play childhood games."

"I know," drizzt relplied sadly. "But don't you miss being a child?"

"No," Maya answered. Drizzt looked sadly at the floor for a moment. He did not notice the look of inspiration that had begun to appear on his sister's face. She ran to the door of the room and peeked out into the hall, before tightly closing the door again. Drizzt saw her run to the balcony, look out over the edge, and turn back to look at him with a strange look of horror on her face.

"What is it?" the second boy asked, truely worried that something was wrong outside the house.

"An invading house," Maya exlplained, her tone filled with a mix of fear, and mischief. "They will surely overthrow this house if we are not quick to stop them." The boy stared at her blankly, unsure what in Lolth's realm his sister was taking about.

"You are the weapon master of House Do'urden," Maya cried excitedly, handing her small brother the handle of an old broom from the closet. "Do something. We are all surely doomed if you stand froozen in fear." Drizzt had to laugh at her now obviously faked helplessness. He spun on his heel, and swung the broom around behind him at some pretend ememy.

"I am a traitor to the house army," Maya shouted suddenly. "I am going to kill you." She grabbed another makeshift wooden weapon, and swung at him as he turned back to face her. Maya nearly slipped on the newly washed floor as he swung back at her. She dodged his attack, as she slid backward a several paces, almost losing her footing. Drizzt reached out, almost without thinking and grabbed hold of her clothes to keep her from falling.

_He is very quick,_ Maya thoguht to herself absently. _He has the instinct of a fighter. _She swung at him several times and to her amazement, he deflected the blows. He was akward, and clumsy in his moves, but nevertheless, he managed to keep her attacks at bay long enough to take several quick steps back, dive out of her reach, and get behind her, trying to attack from behind. Maya spun around and held her makeshift waepon in front of her to block, and Drizzt stumbled back several more steps from the unexpected force of the impact. He fell against the wall behind him, and dropped to his knees, his eyes noticing movement along the edge of the floor. He leaned on the handle of the broom for a moment before letting it drop to ground, and continued watching intently. All thoughts of the game were forgotten now.

"Drizzt, what is it?"

Maya hurried over and kneeled next to her brother. He pointed to what he was watching, and she looked in amazement as several tiny spiders crawled along the bottem of the wall. They began to move up the wall, hanging on with their tiny legs. Several more came from the direction of the first ones, and the two young Do'urdens looked to see a small crack in the corner of the room, almost too small to be noticed.

"Well, that's where they're getting in," Maya said. "They are all just babies. There must be a mother spider in the house to, likely in the chapel. That's on the other side of the wall, so it would make sence. Come on, we shall go and see if I am right." Maya pulled on Drizzt's shirt and he fallowed her excitedly. Happy that his sister wished to spend her time with him, of all people.

Maya found the spider web in the chapel right away. It was near the alter, hung between a wall, and the edge of a raised platform. She pointed it out to her brother, even though he could hardly have missed it.

"The spider that lives on that web, built it a while ago to lay her eggs and then raise her babies," she explained as Drizzt stared at the web.

"There are so many babies," he said. "There must be hundreds of them."

"There are that many now," Maya explained, "but few of them will live to become adults."

"What will happen to them all?"

"Some will be killed in the house in verious accidents, others may die in fights with other spiders for food of territory, still more of them will kill each other. All of them want to make it in life and not of of them ever could."

Drizzt looked up at his sister for a few brief seconds before a childish look of recognition spread acroos his face.

"That sounds a lot like our people," he said in all seriousness. He watched as the mother spider, a fairly small black creature, with a patch of yellow on it's back, began to climb up the web. It hurried along up the delicate shimmering strings until it reached the top. Maya held her hand out and the spider walked right onto it. She moved slowly bringing her hand down to Drizzt's eye level. The spider sat calmly in the palm of her hand, and the boy looked at it in wonder.

"Are you not worried she will bite you?" Drizzt asked.

"No, she won't bite," Maya answered confidantly. "She trusts me to put her back on her web in a moment."

Drizzt had seen many spiders before in his short life of course, but he never ceased to be amazed at the remakable ability the preistesses had in handling them. It seemed at times as though they could comunicate with them.

"She is one of Lolth's messangers," Maya expalined. She held her hand up again and the spider hurried back onto her web. "All of her kind are messangers of the goddess. It is a true blessing though that she choose our house chapel to raise her babies. We must be in Lolth's greatest favor now. This is a sure sign of that. The others in the house must know about this already. They are in here every day. I miss so much that happens here, being away at school."

"Do you ever feel like you just don't understand things?" Drizzt asked suddenly. Maya looked at him with a look of puzzlement on her face.

"What do you mean, things?" she asked.

"I mean...everything," Drizzt replied. "I think at times that, for some strange reason, I was meant to be something great. Most of the time though I don't feel like I am anything at all. I'm just... me. I don't understand life at all. Everyone knows their places here here, knows what to do and how to do it. I still don't know anything. The few things I do know how to do, I do them wrong. Like... like..."

"Like spilling water all over the floor?" Maya finished in amusement.

"Yes," Drizzt said, throwing his arms up in fustration.. "I can't even clean a floor without doing something wrong." Maya knew that she should be taking every chance to help teach the young male his place in the world, below the females. She knew though that their would be lots of time for that in his life. She had always somehow sensed that this one was differant anyway somehow. It was likely that any attempt that she made to knock him down a few notches, would only fail anyway. The boy knew their was something differant about him. The whole house had known it for years. He questioned endlessly, and could never understand things that other children did at his age. He was smart though. His strange purple eyes missed very little that went on around him. That obvservent nature seemed to be the very cause of his questioning most of the time. He was also the most stubburn male she, or anyone else in the house, had ever encountered. He was filled with a strange kind of determination to do things his way. Young Drizzt had learned to levitate at the age of five, something almost unheard of. Five was generally much to young to even try to do that. Their sister Vierna had given him a little 'motivation' with her whip, but mostly he had learned so quickly because he _wanted_ to learn it. The boy possessed a willful streak that caused him to do things on his own terms. His attention would focus so fully on some things that it could barely be redirected until he had had mastered the task. Other times, he seemed comepletely unable to keep his mind in one place for any time at all. She wondered how well Drizzt would fare in the academy.

It was inevitable, she knew, that he would go one day. All male noble children went to study either magic or fighting Their mother was bound and deterimined that he would be sent to the mage school to learn to be a wizard. She really wanted the house to have a mage one day, who could fill the place left by Nalfain, who had died years before. Maya had her doubts about the sense in that plan. She had noticed Drizzt's fighting talent. He had nearly beaten her in a pretend battle without even really trying. She was sure that with training, he could surely be great. She however also knew well, the futileness of trying to argue the point with the matron mother. Still though, she hoped, for the sake of her brother's best interest, that somehow, she would change her mind and send him to the fighters school.

"Where is Vierna anyway?" Maya asked suddenly. She had seen no sign of her sister since arriving at house Do'urden that afternoon. "Last I knew, you were almost aways with her?"

"She is studying some clerical scrolls or something like that," Drizzt replied seating himself causually on the edge of the alter "She told me this morning that she is going to her room to study, and that I was too get this whole room clean, after I clean the hallway, and my bedroom. She said I am not to bother her unless we are in serious trouble. Something like an attack on the house I am old enough, according to her, to be able to figure out the cleaning jobs myself."

"She's supposed to be watching you as much as possible," Maya muttered in disapproval. "Leave it to her to find time to sneak off to study."

"She said today that if she can't find the time to study her books and papers while caring for me, you will likely be given a premotion before she is." Drizzt ezplained. "She says that would be most displeasing to her, as she does not enjoying being embarressed. She told me that it is important that she get some of her own work done once in a while, and she is not going to be held back in life because of me."

Drizzt sat for a moment in silence, an look of embarrasment on his face. He covered his sheepish look by pressing his hand to his mouth.

"I don't think I was supposed to tell anybody that Vierna said that," he told her quietly, his mouth still partly covered by his hand.

"Is she still obsessing about the thought of me getting ahead of her?" Maya muttered with a laugh. "She always was so worried that she would be the laughing stock of the city if her little sister was premoted first. I guess she still haven't learned to see child rearing as a worthwhile investment of her time. I think that's the biggest reason the matron mother gave you to her, and not me to raise." Drizzt looked up at her curiously.

"A lesson to her indeed," Maya continued. "She wished her to learn not to think that she will always knew where her life was headed. Being given the task of caring for a child threw her vision off course."

"But you are nevertheless glad that I was given to her, and not to you?" Drizzt guessed boldly.

"I wouldn't say that exactly," Maya said, sitting beside her little brother on hte edge of the alter.

"What do you mean?" Drizzt asked looking up at her, his hands held calmly over his knees.

"I think I would have liked to have been given the chance," Maya admitted. She looked around the room.

"You are fairly good at cleaning tasks... when you can keep you attention on it long enough. You do always try to do what people tell you to do. And you are intelligent as well," she went on. "How difficult could it be?"

Maya was too busy admiring the workmanship of the chapel's domed ceiling, to see the broad grin that had formed on the mischief making young drow's face. Drizzt was sure that he could answer her question well enough. He was wise enough though, not to bother.


End file.
